Separation Anxiety
by Guardian-381
Summary: Set after Less Than Love Is Nothing a look at the different shapes of loneliness, and their effects on their victims.
1. Resolution

Author's Note: It seems that this fandom refuses to leave me alone... (laughs) This 'story' is really a collection of short pieces, snapshots really, chronicling the state in which I've left the characters following my other works, most recently "Less Than Love Is Nothing". I thought it might be interesting to explore the ways in which the characters are coping with their situations, and I can only hope that my readers will agree. Thank you, as always, for your time.

Resolution (Florian's POV)

It's so dark.

I've spent twelve nights in this room since I moved here two weeks ago, and each time the sun sets, the same realization crosses my mind, as though I have yet to experience it. Back home-- no, back at Noir's home-- there are electric lamps in every room; here, there are only a few candles, the replacement of which is costly enough to discourage me from using them too freely. Unfortunately, however, keeping up with my studies requires light to read by, and so I often end up lighting the candles anyway.

A draft makes the tiny flame beside me flicker, and I am reminded as I draw the heavy curtains over the single, east-facing window that the room is equipped only with the most Spartan of heating devices, an over-large radiator coil that, as far as I can tell, never manages to produce more than a trickle of warmth. It's certainly a far cry from the fireplace in Noir's bedroom.

I smile as I return to my small but serviceable desk, skirting the foot of my equally-small-but-serviceable bed along the way. The first time Noir saw this room, he was absolutely horrified; if I had given him the slightest chance, I believe he would have called off my departure entirely, just to prevent me from downgrading my living circumstances so severely. I was able to calm him down a bit by reminding him of the ones I hadn't taken, the floors covered in too-obvious mouse droppings, the windowless closets that even a monk may have found unbearable. In the end, of course, he gave me the money for the first few weeks' rent, though he made me promise that I would find something else, or return home, if my accommodations degenerated even further.

Most of the time, I am able to ignore the part of me that wishes he had not given in.

I close my book, a tattered history volume from the university library, and blow out the candle immediately. The darkness seems to envelop me, and I return to the window, anxious for even the minute comfort of the distant streetlamps below. Shadows pass through the gloom on the sidewalk directly beneath my window, and I watch them carefully, exploring the strange feeling of voyeurism, of one-sided intimacy.

I miss Noir. To a large extent, that feeling is constant, but I bury it as much as I can beneath the essential monotony of daily existence. Nevertheless, though, it lurks on the fringes of my mind, scratching at the walls of my focus, at the foundations of my resolution. It whispers enticingly of how easy it would be to go back, how readily Noir would accept me back into my old life, and how much I really do want to give up on all of this self-inflicted resistance. _Think of the library, with its fireplace and its aura of knowledge; remember the satisfaction of keeping the books in order. Think of your bedroom, with its antique furniture; remember how his arms felt, sliding around you as you slept. Remember the taste of his lips, the warmth of his body. Remember the supreme comfort he gave you. _

I close my eyes against it, but the voice completes its trap anyway: _How can you stay away from him with these memories to remind you of what you're missing?_

The answer, as always, is simple: _With great difficulty._

I would be lying if I pretended that I want to be here. I cannot delude myself into believing that I am in any way happier in this new life than I was in the one from which I seemed, at the time, only too eager to flee. However, I also know that to run back home would be to destroy everything, including any satiety that may be waiting for us in the future. I have to survive on my own, without him, both to prove that I can and for the power to say that I chose to live with him for reasons beyond simple, childish dependence. I know that, if our relationship is to survive, it must become a partnership of equals, and though this image provides scant comfort, it is a comfort nonetheless. At this point, I am in no position to refuse any form of comfort, tainted though it might be with regret.

With a sigh, I turn away from the window, undress, and climb into bed, barely wincing as a protruding spring jabs into my back. _Another day down,_ I tell myself. _One less to go. _

As sleep blankets my exhausted mind, I pray detachedly for the strength to keep to the path I've chosen, no matter what cost it may exact from me.


	2. Evolution

Author's Note: Thanks to Astra, whose gossipy old ladies inspired this snapshot's antagonist. (laughs)

Evolution (Noir's POV)

It's far too bright.

I quell the urge to cover my eyes with one hand by forcing myself to scan the swirling colours and flashing jewellery of the animate tableau before me. I have always been irked by the garishness of these displays, such a necessary ingredient at social functions, but for some reason, it is making me physically ill tonight. What's different? There have been worse parties: the Countess Angelique's anniversary, for one, with all those ice sculptures…

But, of course, I know what's different: he's not here with me.

I had forgotten, I suppose, how difficult it could be to simply watch these couples spinning around the scuffed marble of the dance floor with only a drink to keep my attention occupied. I never realized just how reliant I was on his presence, so calm, so reassuring; I never quite understood how acutely I enjoyed his frequent comments, his rare cynical judgements.

I had completely underestimated how… _boring_ parties could be.

A woman is coming toward me: she seems to think that approaching by weaving through the crowd will render her inconspicuous, and I manage to satisfy my impulse to laugh with a barely-there grin. Her lavender dress would be striking even without its red lace trim; as it is, it's impossible to miss. _She's an absolute beacon_, Florian's voice whispers, and I chuckle despite the sharpening of my pain. His observations are always so apt.

After an interminable period of pretending that I am unaware of her approach, the woman finally manages to get within polite speaking distance of me. "Good evening, Count Courland. I must compliment you on your suit. Wherever did you have it made?"

"Good evening," I reply. Her name has escaped me; I never took her seriously enough to bother learning it. Florian would know it, of course: this is yet another thing I seem to have come to expect him to take care of. "My personal tailor makes all my clothes; I will transmit your compliments to him."

"Oh, yes, please do." Her eyes flick over me, and I suspect that she is far less interested in the suit than in the body it was made to conceal. "I wasn't aware you kept a personal tailor. The money lending business must be very lucrative."

"Not so much as all that." Florian would know what to say in this case as well, how to get rid of her without her even realizing that she was anything less than welcome. "Your gown is certainly… unique."

She grins, perhaps a bit toothily. "It is, isn't it? I am unfortunately not so privileged as to keep a private dressmaker, but there's an elderly woman in Versailles who does some fabulous work." Her smile fades into dismissiveness, too gradually. "Of course, her daughter has to help her now; the poor dear isn't as… 'together' as she once was. I'm sure you take my meaning?"

"Oh, most certainly." I cast my eyes around the room again, hoping to see an acquaintance with whom I might strike up a more palatable dialogue. Of course, there is not a single familiar face in the sea before me. "I imagine she appreciates your loyalty."

"Yes, well, I must say that any further degeneration on her part will place her well beneath the threshold of 'loyalty'." She clasps her hands before her and looks around, so transparently that I believe she must have rehearsed the gesture for at least the better part of a day. "I haven't seen Monsieur du Rochefort this evening. Is he indisposed?"

My opinion of her, which is already severely lacking, begins to plummet. "His studies keep him occupied," I reply icily.

"Oh, yes, his _studies_. How could I forget?" She adjusts her hair, as though I've just told her that Florian is engaged in something even more meaningless than counting the threads which compose the sitting room rugs. "Now that you mention it, I did hear some rumours to that effect." Her grin reappears, and its taint has become predatory. "I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, but when I heard that you had begun appearing at functions such as these on your own, I was rather relieved for you."

"Is that right?" I think I hate her. "I can't imagine why."

She sniffs. "Well, please do correct me if I'm wrong, but I always felt that you were a bit… constrained, shall we say, by him. He was always in your shadow, like… an ill-fitting accessory, I think." Her eyes adopt a false softness. "Forgive my boldness, but you aren't the kind of man who needs the comfort of a clinging vine."

I narrow my eyes, and catch her flinch just before she can check it. "And what do I need, Madame?" I intone darkly.

To her credit, she collects herself very quickly. "Someone who can understand you: your life, your desires." Her voice becomes quiet, but I refuse to lean in any closer to hear her. "Monsieur du Rochefort is more than pretty enough for a pleasant dalliance, of course, but you need someone more worldly to hold your interest."

"Like yourself, I'd wager you're trying to imply?" Boredom and revulsion, in equally minute quantities, meld with my annoyance and protectiveness of Florian.

Undaunted, she chuckles, and throws her shoulders back, accentuating her ample breasts. "Perhaps," she says, and her attempt at coyness is truly nauseating.

I take a moment to examine her, despite the knowledge that she will take my silence as an indication that I am considering her ridiculous proposal. I see now that she is not young, that beneath the layers of powder and rouge, fine lines in her face are not entirely concealed. Beneath her too-eager overtures, I begin to taste desperation, and wonder whether simple lust has engendered it. It's possible that she, or someone she knows, is in trouble, and she hopes to sell herself to me for the means, monetary or otherwise, to resolve the situation. While these considerations do not override my anger, they do blunt it somewhat, and I have to laugh. It seems that I have, despite myself, learned at least some of Florian's innate generosity of character, and this reminder of how irrevocably we are joined, how close we will always be, makes me feel better than I have all night.

"Have I said something funny, Count Courland?" Her cheeks have grown pink; she is obviously not used to being insulted.

"Not at all." I fix my gaze on hers, and am surprised to learn that any malice I bore her has already evaporated. "I find your offer distasteful, and your disregard of Florian is nothing short of despicable." I pause to allow the wave of affront to cross her face completely before I continue. "But, despite that, you have managed to remind me of something important, something which I had been overlooking until now." I offer her the most radiant smile I can manage, and raise my nearly-empty glass to her, as though in a toast. "For that, and that alone, Madame, I thank you, and bid you good night."

My piece said, I drain my glass and leave it on the nearest flat surface, which happens to be an antique end table. Then, before she can gather breath, nerve, or words to speak, I cross the dance floor, earning more than a few well-deserved glares along the way. And, miraculously, none of it matters. Even though Florian is not by my side, and the house will be empty when I return, I feel close to him, perhaps closer even than I was when he was near enough to touch.

In moments like these, I begin to believe that I just might survive our time apart.


	3. Absolution

Absolution (Laila's POV)

It's so different.

It's been nearly a year since I left Noir's service, and fled to Carthage with Michel. In some ways, it seems as though it all happened yesterday: I can still feel the uncertainty, the fear, the regret. I can still remember, so distinctly, how it felt to go about my daily life, to allow my service to him to take over everything so that I wouldn't need to think, so that I wouldn't need to want any more than he was prepared to give me.

How much I have changed since then.

I rise from the chair that occupies one corner of my spacious bedroom and look around as though, after a year of sleeping in that bed, of using that washbasin, of staring wistfully out that window, none of it belongs to me, or I to it. The feeling is complicated, and hard to pin down exactly. I don't feel like I'm trespassing, as I did during those first few difficult days, but neither do I feel at home, as I used to whenever I was at Noir's side, no matter where we happened to be. I no longer feel an inexplicable desire to run away, but neither can I imagine myself staying here for the rest of my life. I am more than a guest, but less than a citizen; I am more than a refugee, but less than a willing immigrant.

I am more than Michel's charity case, but less than his friend.

A familiar guilt suffuses me, and I sigh. In letting me come here, even for a single day, Michel was already demonstrating impossible kindness; to tolerate my presence here for as long as he has seems evidence of a patience that belongs in the domain of the saints. He has been more than understanding: he has given me space when I needed it, and made himself available when I desired the comfort of his presence. Despite all this, however, there's still a great distance between us, and with each day that passes, I feel that I'm letting him down more and more by my inability to recover, to let go of Noir, and the life that I, supposedly, left behind of my own free will.

Why did I leave Noir? Immediately, the old answers come rushing into my mind, implanted there by rote rehearsal: our relationship was stagnant; too much had passed between us to be resolved; we wanted different things; he had trouble appreciating me as a person, as divorced from the functions I performed, and I had trouble seeing past my fantasy to the man onto whom it was projected. Maybe all of the other problems stemmed from the last one; what did I have left, after all, once I had to realize that he would never love me as I wanted him to, that I would never again be first in his life? What was there to hold onto, once the fundamental emptiness of our relationship had been exposed? What sort of future could we possibly have created, between my doomed, grasping expectations and his careless, or perhaps wilful, ignorance?

I can only imagine, but the horror of it does nothing to blunt my desire to try.

Maybe it's time to stop asking myself why I left, and to start asking myself instead why I can't let that question go. I've been going around it for so long that I've almost forgotten its pointlessness. What does it matter why I left; who cares what would have happened if I hadn't? It's done, and over… I can't change it. I can't even talk to him anymore; I doubt he would even see me if I showed up.

Would he?

I cross to the window, and lean against the sill; the loose sleeves of my dress blow in the sea breeze, and I inhale deeply. Recently, I've been entertaining thoughts of going back to France, if only for a day. I've even had dreams about it, although those never seem to get me beyond Noir's front door. I'm not sure what I mean to accomplish, or even if I can accomplish anything at all, but the desire remains, inexorable despite my best efforts.

I want… Most of all, I want to see him, I suppose. I want to know that he's happy, as though that would do something to alleviate my own pain, my own sense of guilt over abandoning him. In reality, it would probably just serve to intensify it: seeing him again, so firmly entrenched in the life that he and Florian have, by now, surely built together, would only remind me of my own alienation, and the blame that I bear for choosing it in the first place.

Still, though… maybe it wouldn't have to be like that. Maybe, if I saw him again, we could pretend that everything was fine. Maybe by now, he's forgiven me, and if I show up unexpectedly on his doorstep, he'll take the day off, and we can go out, and talk like old friends, like nothing has ever passed between us but love and platitudes. He could even bring Florian along: I wouldn't mind.

Maybe what I really want is absolution. I want to be forgiven for being selfish enough to burden Noir with my feelings; I want to be cleansed of every time I've considered ways to steal him for myself, whatever the cost might be. I want to know that, even after all this, this time and this strain, our relationship is still alive, in some vestige of its former glory, however shadowed or broken it might be.

I want to know that, no matter what, he still loves me, as a friend or a sister if nothing else.

I close my eyes, and wonder what Michel would say if I told him this, if I suggested that I go back to France, and put these spectres to rest. Lately, I've come to value his wisdom, cloaked though it often is beneath his joking nature and optimistic outlook. I like to think that I've gotten to know him well enough to predict his answers with some degree of accuracy, but this one eludes me. I believe that he would be supportive of whatever decision I chose, if only because that's what I've come to expect from him, but he might also discern a truer motive beneath the thin veil of my reason, one which points not to resolution, but to regression.

And, possibly, he would be right.

I have usually been able to put this train of thought aside by invoking the image of Michel's disappointment, and the terror of not only being forced to realize the impurity of my own motives, but of him being made aware of them as well. This time, though, the restraint is weaker, the hesitation less unanimous, and I know, suddenly, that I will go back to France someday, and that I will stand on Noir's doorstep, and ask to see him. What will happen after that, I have no idea, but at the very least, it will have happened, and in the wake of that potentially-bleak fact, these considerations will finally be answered. I've gone past the point of caring how the story ends; all I want now is for there to be an ending.

How else, after all, can I ever hope for a new beginning?


	4. Dissolution

Dissolution (Solomon's POV)

It's so quiet.

It's a bit terrifying, just how easily I got used to having someone around, how quickly I came to enjoy sharing even my limited space with another human being. Before Ruby came to stay, I had never paid much attention to the loneliness that, I now realize, I must surely have felt; after she left, Florian arrived quickly enough to prevent it from returning immediately. Now that both of them are gone, however, I am only too conscious of the space that they left behind, and the powers that have come to occupy it: Doubt, for one. Fear, for another. And, of course, the one which rules them all: the inexorable Silence.

I doubt that the path I have chosen is correct. Sitting here alone, with nothing to show for my years in this city but derelict furniture, an overpriced dump of an apartment, and an old revolver, it is easy to imagine that any choice might have led to a better outcome. If only I had stayed in America instead of coming to Europe with Ruby, back when her transformation was yet incomplete; if only I had kept to the regulations of the Paris police force instead of following my trenchant instincts down the path to disgrace. If only I had chased after Ruby when she left, instead of letting her escape to God knows where; if only I had been a bit more selfish with Florian instead of respecting his wishes, his desires, his needs.

If only I had acted like a completely different person, I am fairly certain, I would have a far more pleasant life.

But of course, I think as I turn away from the window and, more importantly, from the shade of Florian's departing back, nothing is that easy. Nothing is that simple. Every decision has consequences, and only a small portion of them are immediately visible. Had I stayed in America, for instance, I might have been knifed to death in an alley, one of the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time people that the police spend their days cataloguing. Had I not used questionable means to track the Phantom Thief Noir, I would still be chasing my tail with the rest of the Paris detectives. As for Ruby and, to a lesser extent, Florian… yes, I might have been capable of extorting their physical companionship, but their minds, their hearts, their souls… I could never have made the parts of them that matter submit to me, could never have made them stay with me as I need them to. Such gifts must be given of the donor's free will, or they are destroyed in the taking.

I know this, but it seems an increasingly feeble excuse for not trying to make them stay anyway.

The subtle jolt that courses down the column of my neck as the back of my head strikes the wooden frame of the couch's backrest brings a little more of my consciousness back, and I close my eyes, both to deny the depressing reality without and to see more precisely the mysterious reality within. Who am I, really, now that I've been severed from everyone else? What do I want, and how can I go about getting it, using the limited resources I have and without snatching it from the jaws of anyone as desperate as myself?

Is it even possible to survive without hurting anyone else? Is that the crux of my problem, that I'm unwilling to lower myself that far? If I were more ruthless, would I be happier? Would I finally know satiety?

Does satiety exist for anyone but those too blissfully ignorant to define it?

The realization of just how far I've sunk fills my awareness, and I have to laugh. When did I become so… maudlin, so cynical? When did I stop living, and start waiting to die? Surely, it can't be anything to do with Ruby, or Florian, or even Noir; it can't be a consequence of the things I gave them, or the things they wound up costing me. There must be something wrong with me, some inherent predisposition to… what? What exactly is this sensation, this feeling that is beyond loneliness, but not quite desolation?

What force, within or without, conjured this exquisitely mysterious pain?

I meditate on this for a while, for too long, before I discover that it doesn't matter. Whether the slash in his throat was opened by a machete, a knife, or the end of a particularly sharp key, the victim is still as dead. It's what happens after, the reaction, the thing yet to come, that makes the difference, onto which the attention must be focused. The question is not what brought me to this place, it's what I plan to do now that I'm here.

And now, finally, I believe that I have an answer.

I rise shakily from the couch, and drift into my bedroom. My body feels too light, as though I'm dreaming, but it seems that my mind has never been more awake. Gingerly, I crouch on the dusty carpet beside my bed, and draw a battered suitcase from beneath it. Inside, I find old case files on the Phantom Thief Noir, some which I stole from the police archives myself and others which I begged from old acquaintances on the strength of shared drinks and dire confidences. I memorized them, and then secreted them like treasure in the hoard of a possessed dragon; now, I let them flutter to the ground, like the meaningless paper they've become.

I fill the suitcase with what necessities I have to hand: mostly clothing, but also a few rounds of ammunition for the gun in my belt and some day-old bread I never got around to finishing. It seems far too light to contain everything I think I'll ever need, but I remind myself that it does as I carry it to the door; everything, that is, that could conceivably fit into a suitcase.

It doesn't, for instance, contain contentment. It doesn't contain love. It doesn't contain her.

I laugh, and the sound is so far from bitter that I am relieved. Would even a suitcase the size of Paris be enough to contain the indomitable Ruby Brown?

I never should have let her go, I remind myself as I open my apartment door, breathe deeply, and step out into the hallway. I should have asked her to stay; I should have begged her to stay. If I had done that, she would have; I know that now. All she needed was the certainty that I wanted her, that I needed her, and she would have turned around.

I didn't give it to her then. I pray for the chance to give it to her now.

I close the door behind me, and exhale, gripping the suitcase in my hand more tightly. She said that she was going back to America, but I don't believe that for a moment. I think she's still here, waiting for me to follow her trail, to connect the dots of clues she's left strewn in her wake, and come after her. After all, she too is human; she too must be lonely.

I nod once, raise my head, and turn toward the stairwell. She won't have made it easy for me, but I'll find her.

After all, she's no Phantom.


End file.
